Funny Guy catches My Boy Tate for Thunder Rumble triumph

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - Funny Guy needed every inch of the Aqueduct stretch to run down My Boy Tate and win Sunday’s $100,000 Thunder Rumble division of the New York Stallion Stakes by a neck.

It was two lengths back to Bankit in third. It was 12 1/4 lengths back to T Loves a Fight, who stumbled at the start. Binkster, who set a slow early pace, finished last of five.

The win was the third in restricted company this year for Funny Guy, all races in which he beat My Boy Tate. Sunday's finish, however, was the closest of the three.

Sitting an inside trip early under Joel Rosario, Funny Guy was fourth of five and behind horses approaching the top of the stretch. My Boy Tate was a stalking second, just outside of Binkster, who set fractions of 23.59 seconds for the quarter and 47.53 for the half-mile.

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My Boy Tate, under Manny Franco, took the lead approaching the quarter pole and was two lengths in front at the eighth pole. Funny Guy, who did get out in the clear in upper stretch, did not seem to be gaining ground from the three-sixteenths pole to the eighth pole. But inside the final furlong, Funny Guy, the 124-pound highweight who was conceding four pounds to the field, did kick in and was able to corral My Boy Tate strides before the wire.

Funny Guy, a son of Big Brown owned by Randy Hill, Mike Gatsas, and Greg Swick and trained by John Terranova, covered the seven furlongs in 1:23.57 and returned $3.60 as the 4-5 favorite.

“I know it looked like for a second maybe we’re not going to get there - that horse got away a little bit - but the last part he was really giving me everything he had,” Rosario said.

Though it was the first of just four dirt races on the card, Terranova said the Aqueduct main track appeared to be loose, or at least looser than the surfaces at Belmont and Saratoga over which Funny Guy won New York-bred stakes earlier in the year.

“He springs over the quicker, tighter tracks that we’ve had over the summer time a lot better and he’s a big, heavy colt; the ground was probably getting away from him a little bit before he got in gear,” Terranova said. “He was trapped in there a little bit and had to pick up off no pace.”

Terranova said he’s not sure what the future holds for Funny Guy, but he did mention the General George, a seven-furlong stakes typically run at Laurel Park in mid-February as a possible early 2021 target.